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John Has Big Dreams

FeaturesJohn Has Big Dreams

John is a young adult who comes
from a very humble and poor family.
He is trying to survive. He has big
dreams. Someday, he would like to
be a doctor, an engineer, or an
architect. He looks around him and
sees so many well-dressed people
with nice cars. He walks the streets
and sees beautiful buildings, houses
where people from the elite class live,
and poor John thinks to himself,
“What can I do to at least have a
roof over my head where I can rest
and water doesn’t come in when it
rains, or the sun doesn’t peek through
the cracks in the mornings and the
overbearing heat at noon where I have
to leave so early because, well, I can’t
stand being in my shack so hot. What
am I going to do to get a good job
John Has Big Dreams
and not be getting a little thing from
here to there, sweeping the street,
removing mud from places, or
chopping a place where they don’t
pay me more than a few cents, since
labor is so cheap?”
While John was working, he met a
man who had asked him to do his
errands, and John, a young man,
although poor, badly dressed, was
honest, and one day he asked the man,
“What could I do to improve my
living conditions?”
The man told him, “My son, you
need to study.”
John: “But how am I going to
study when I don’t even have
elementary school?
The man: “Look, there are some
good schools here in Belize where
you can study for a degree, and once
you have your certificate or diploma
that you are a qualified person in the
degree you decide to take, you are
going to earn very good money.”
And John says, “How do I come
in? The man replied, “Well, go raise
your money, save it and when you
have enough you apply to be
accepted in the school of studies.”
Well, John did what the man had told
him. He obeyed, took into account
and began to raise his little money. But
to do that he had to stop eating what
he ate, which was almost nothing, and
he decided to eat tortilla with salt, and
some pepper to give it a little flavor
with a bottle of water, but it wasn’t
one of those purified bottled waters
that they sell now. No, it was just any
old bottle, and he would refill it at a
faucet one way or another, that is. He
didn’t have the means to buy purified
water, so he filled the bottle wherever
he could, and with that he ate,
supported himself, raised his little
money until he had the amount to enroll
in this very renowned school.
He was finally able to submit an
application, which was accepted, and
he was able to start studying. He
continued doing the little jobs that he
always did, and little by little he paid
until he finally graduated. He felt
happy and finally said to himself, “I
have achieved my dreams.” The
government had made a salary table,
and his salary as a specialist in his
career was $100 an hour, since the
minimum wage was $5 an hour and
he, as an engineer, obviously already
a specialist, also qualified at such a
renowned institution, well-known
throughout the world; damn, that is
the official salary that he should
receive. Poor John did not know that
there was another school around the
corner that gave a certificate to do
the same work that he did, for which
persons were paid $10 an hour.
And there you have John, looking
for a job, and nobody wants to hire
him because he is very expensive;
they have to pay him $100 an hour; it
is impossible. But he was lucky
enough to be hired by the
government. Well, yes, the
government obviously has a lot of
money, with the people’s taxes, and
he was well-compensated, oh yes. But
how many of those Johns are there
with certificates? Are they all going
to work with the government? They
won’t fit. They do not fit. Thousands
upon thousands with their Bachelor’s
degrees, their doctorates, and their
Master’s degrees—they don’t fit in
government. It’s not possible. The
government doesn’t make that much
money for that. Could it be? Well,
there they are without work. But that
person who has his certificate where
he earns $10 an hour, had a job. So
much so, that he was able to go to
work with a person who earned a
salary of $5 an hour, and that person
was able to save $20 of his salary to
pay two hours of work to the $10
qualified person to do the same job
that the engineer would do that
charged $100 an hour.
What kind of world is this right? So
many speeches are heard which are so
convincing, whereby we believe. All
that is true is that there is hunger: 60
percent of the people of Belize are
messed up, are suffering. They do not
have a job, they do not have a way to
support themselves, and this is not
something that has just recently been
happening. This was from before the
pandemic. Poverty is immense in
Belize, very immense. And there are
investments here and there,
investments that the banks give,
investments from such and such a
country which donated an amount of
money for this and that, so much
money that they donate, so much
money here and there, so many loans
that they make, but, where is it? Where
is it? People are still hungry; there are
no jobs; smuggling continues.
There are PUP smugglers, there are
UDP smugglers, and so on. You
change the government, there are
smugglers from that government; you
change to the other government, there
are smugglers from that other
government. It’s just that. Nothing
more. The other had 13 years, that’s
good. Hopefully those who had the
opportunity got rich. How many years
is this one going to get? Who knows,
but let those who are close to them
take advantage, because, well, once
they no longer have money, they no
longer have a job. Once the people
kick them out, well, it’s over. I mean,
what’s the use of a role that makes
you an engineer or an architect or a
doctor or whatever, if there’s no
work. There isn’t.
There are no medications. How
many people complain, how many
people are asking for assistance to buy
medicine, because there aren’t any? Of
course, they are in pharmacies for sale,
but they are very expensive; it is for
people who have the money to buy.
How do they do that? Who knows.
But there is no Tylenol for children or
adults at the public clinic. What? Don’t
these people have the right to live?
What are they talking about?
Sometimes I wish they would explain
themselves better, because they are not
understood. They speak a language
that who knows what it is, both one
and the other, cannot be understood.
Forty-one years of independence, and
there is still immense poverty. It’s not
only in Belize, it’s worldwide. And
don’t tell me that ‘Russia is to blame’;
please don’t talk nonsense. Enter into
history and you will realize what the
human being is. That’s where the
answer to any question is. The past
tells us what is in the present, and the
present shows us the face of the
future.
[email protected]
June 4, 2022
Finca Solana
Corozal Town

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